


Savages

by mathelode (engmaresh)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Phasma - Delilah S. Dawson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, First Order Politics (Star Wars), Gen, Murder, Parnassos (Star Wars), Scheming, sand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26363674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/mathelode
Summary: Crash landing on Parnassos with his father turns out to be one of the best things to ever happen to Armitage Hux.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Phasma
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: We Die Like Fen 4: We Lived to Die Afen





	Savages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



> Some of the lines in the beginning are cribbed wholesale from the _Phasma_ novel.
> 
> (Warning: There's some brief bodyshaming from Hux's end, returning the favour to his father.)

Pushing away a pang of sorrow, Siv looked around for her next fight. Torben was gone, and both Brendol’s troopers were on the ground, one half stripped of his armour. She spotted Brendol Hux cowering behind his shield, partially stuffed into armour that didn’t fit. Phasma was still fighting, though her opponents had been cut down to three, and even as Siv watched, another fell, half his head blown away. She followed the path of the shot to see Hux’s son, crouched behind the cockpit of the ship, a blaster in his hand. He’d taken advantage of the confusion to rappel to higher ground.

Another warrior fell with a cry, holding the gushing stump of her arm, and Phasma kicked her back into the sand, where she was immediately swarmed by the golden beetles. As she finished off her final attacker, Brendol ran for the ship, grabbing the rope Armitage had used to climb, and started to make his slow laborious way up the side.

There was nothing left for Siv to do. Dropping her shield, she picked her way across the battlefield, and knelt next to Torben’s body, pulling out her detraxor. She bowed her head, giving him her final thanks. “Your today protects my people’s tomorrow.” Then she looked up and glared across the sea of sand and bodies at Keldo, still in his sled. Thanks to him, there were hardly any more people left for a tomorrow. But she continued onwards, slipping the spike into Torben. “Body to body, dust to dust.”

A sudden shout made her whip around, back the looming shape of the ship. Brendol had made it halfway up, but his legs seemed to have slipped out from under him. His hands scrabbled desperately at the metal of the hull. Armitage had risen to his feet, and dispassionately watched his father struggle. 

“Armitage!” Brendol yelled. Siv didn’t understand why he didn’t just let go. The drop would hurt, but it wasn’t that far from the ground. Then she spotted the rip in Brendol’s sleeve, red with blood. If he struck the sand, the beetles would be upon him. “You useless boy!” Brendol shouted. “Help me.”

“No,” said Armitage flatly. Siv saw his hand tighten on his blaster, but his arm remained at his side. “Only the strongest survive. You taught me that, _Father_.” And as he spoke the word his lips peeled back in a snarl, transforming his sunburnt, expressionless face into something animal and cruel. “Look at you, you fat lazy lump.” 

As he spoke, Brendol managed to regain his footing and claw a little further up. It put one of his hands in perfect reach of Armitage’s boot. He cried out again as his son dug his heel viciously into the back of his hand. “I will kill you!” he spat in his rage, trying to pry his hand free. “I’ll wring your scrawny neck, boy, you’ll wish you’d never been born!”

“ _You’re_ useless,” Armitage snarled, and stepped back. His sudden release overbalanced Brendol and for a moment he seemed to hang in the air, arms pinwheeling. Then he landed heavily in the sand, and in seconds the beetles were on him. His screams cut through the air as they swarmed him, crawling up his uniform to reach his wound. His wound must have been deep; Siv saw them burrowing into his flesh and had to look away. Nobody went to offer him mercy. Even Phasma, who had pinned all her ambition on him, stood by to watch him die.

By the time the detraxor was done, he’d stopped screaming, and Phasma had made her way over to Keldo and his sled. Brother and sister faced each other.

“Look at what you’ve done,” said Keldo. “You’ve destroyed it all. Everything we’ve worked for. Our people!”

Phasma took a menacing step forward, and Keldo flinched. “Wrong, Keldo. We had one chance. One chance to leave this dying planet for something better. We could have had it, if it weren’t for you.”

“And this is what you want?” hissed Keldo. “To go among these people, this First Order. Look at them!” He gestured up at the ship. Armitage had disappeared, and Siv frantically scanned the ruined landscape for him until she caught a flash of red in the cockpit. He’d managed to find a way in.

“They say they’re better than us, with all their technology and all their power. You think Hux and his people will think any better of you because you wear their armour and speak their language now? They’re savages. They will do anything to live, eat each other for the barest chance. We’re no better off out there.”

“Phasma!”

They all turned as one. Armitage was crouched on the hull of the ship, preparing to rappel back down. “I’ve called my ship. They’re coming.”

 _My ship_ , Siv noted. Less than an hour ago it’d been his father’s.

Keldo put his hands up, pleading. “Phasma, don’t do this. Don’t be this.”

Phasma shook her head, raising her blaster and taking aim.

“I know what I am, Keldo. I always have. That’s the difference between us. I’m willing to finish what I’ve begun.”

Keldo crumpled sideways when she shot him, chest smoking. Frey screamed, the child still huddled behind the shield with him. “No!” cried Siv, as Phasma aimed her blaster. “Don’t, Phasma!”

“No need for that,” cut in Armitage’s smooth, cultured voice, coming up behind them. He’d tried to push his hair back, but had accidentally smeared it with some dark grease. It looked almost like a salve, and for a moment Siv wondered if he’d taken the detraxors to Brendol, but he couldn’t possibly have. Besides, there was nothing left of Brendol to take from.

“The First Order needs children. We can take her with us.”

Slowly, Phasma nodded. As Frey crawled into Siv’s arms, she watched some kind of silent agreement pass between Armitage and Phasma. She wondered if this was a coup that had been long in the making, and wondered if Brendol had suspected it, back in Arratu, when he’d ordered Phasma to turn on Armitage and beat him instead of Wranderous.

They left her alone with Frey while they went back up into the cockpit, breaking into the rest of the ship to find supplies that would possibly help them stave off the radiation sickness until the First Order arrived. Siv smeared more salve onto her face and Frey’s, then explained the detraxtors to the girl, showing her how to slip in the spike, had her recite the prayers until she could repeat it without faltering. At some point Armitage and Phasma reappeared, with tools he curtly explained were hyposprays, that were supposed to contain some kind of medication to counter the sickness.

There was also a strange rod, which he ran over all of them, and after it beeped several times when he ran it over Siv, he pulled Phasma aside and they conferred again. Siv chewed her lip. She avoided touching her belly.

The First Order ship finally arrived, looking nothing like the sleek silver bird Brendol had been downed in. Instead it was black and full of sharp dark angles that reminded her of the cliffs of the Scyre.

Two lines of troopers in shining white armour marched out, between them a young man dressed in a dark uniform similar to what the Huxes had worn. “Lieutenant-General!” he greeted Hux, saluting. Though he did not move, Siv saw his eyes travel searchingly. 

“The general is dead,” said Hux. He’d schooled his features to neutrality and his voice was empty of emotion. There was no trace of the sudden savagery that had come to the forefront at the death of his father. Hands folded behind his back, even with his scraggly beard and sunburnt face, he looked like he belonged there, among the expressionless helmets of the trooper and the dark angular lines of the ship. More so than his father had.

“Lieutenant Mitaka,” he addressed his companion. “Ensure his remains are taken care of.” And he waved his hands to the direction of the fallen silvery ship.

Then he turned to Phasma. “Come.” No invitation was extended to Siv and Frey, but he didn’t prevent them from entering his ship, which was just as dark and oppressive on the inside as it was on the outside. There were more hyposprays pressed to their skin, more rods--which one of the unhelmeted troopers explained to her were scanners--run over them, and then Siv and Frey were ushered into an empty room, where straight-backed seats surrounded a shiny black table. Unsure if she was allowed to sit, Siv lowered herself into the most defensible corner she could find, and pulled Frey into her lap.

Moments later the door opened, admitting both Phasma and Armitage. Hux had changed out of his clothes, and was wearing the exact same uniform as he’d had on in the crash. Phasma remained in her poorly fitted armour, the crimson cloth under it bulging out at the joints.

He sat down at one end of the table, gestured for Phasma to take the seat on his right, then, eerily so, they turned as one to Siv. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. 

His face was still as blank as Phasma’s mask, but when Frey curiously lifted her tear-streaked face from Siv’s shoulder, he attempted what Siv believed he thought was a smile. Frey shrank back, and Siv was hard pressed not to do so herself. She preferred his empty face. 

Sighing, he turned away, and seemed to catch Phasma’s eye. Slowly, for the first time since Arratu, Phasma pulled away her helmet. 

If Siv had somehow expected their new situation to have changed her, she was wrong. The mask had protected her from the worst of the sun so that she was actually paler than the rest of them, and her mouth curved down as she studied Siv, but otherwise she was the Phasma she’d always been. Siv had just never thought of her eyes as cold.

“You’re pregnant,” she told Siv. “You know that, don’t you?”

Slowly, Siv nodded. There was no point in hiding it. “What will you do with us?”

Phasma turned to Armitage. “The girl will be put in the stormtrooper training program,” he told them. “She’s strong, and the First Order needs good soldiers. She will be fed, trained, and educated, and she will want for nothing while she’s with us.”

Siv knew there was no speaking against it. It wasn’t a choice. She nodded again, and put her hand to her belly. “What about me? What about my child?”

For a moment, he seemed to falter, some unknown emotion passing across his face. It was gone in a second, and Siv pretended she hadn’t noticed. 

“When your child is old enough, it will be put into the same program. It will receive training, a proper education, and will be the first of a new generation to witness the change the First Order will bring to the galaxy. As for you…” Here his tone shifted, regaining some of the unctuousness she recognized from when he talked to his father. He was trying to sound persuasive, like he was selling her a good deal. “You’re too old for any of the infantry training programs. But there can be a place for you here too. Sanitation probably. Or in the kitchens. How does that sound?”

“Good,” lied Siv. “It sounds good.”

“Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together. He rose to his feet, gesturing to the door, and Phasma put her helmet back on. “Please give us the room. One of my staff will fetch you at the entrance. We’ll soon be on the _Finalizer_ and there you’ll be shown to your respective quarters.”

Neither he nor Phasma offered to help as Siv climbed awkwardly to her feet, clutching Frey’s hand hard in hers. She didn’t know how long “soon” was, but she knew once it came, she was never going to see Frey again.

“I have one more question,” she said, turning to Hux. He’d sat back now, and was tapping the smooth surface of the table, eager to be rid of her. “My child. When you take them. Will I be allowed to see them?”

“Of course,” he said, and the lie was plain in his face. “Don’t worry about it.”  
  


* * *

“She will stop you,” said Phasma the moment the door sealed behind Siv. “She’ll never let you take her child.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Hux. He tugged on the collar of his uniform. It was good to be out of the rags and back in his uniform, but there was only a sonic shower available in the shuttle, and he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to return to his quarters aboard the _Finalizer_ until he’d been fully debriefed. The high collar chafed against the reddened, sensitive skin of his neck, and despite his careful cleaning, it still felt like he had sand between his toes and in worse places. It truly did get everywhere.

But before he could even start to think about any of that, there was the question of Phasma. Brendol had promised her a place by his side, but Hux could make no such assurances. Brendol had clout and connections he still lacked, and there was a chance Phasma would be dropped out the closest airlock just for the convenience of it. 

She knew that though. She’d still stood aside and watched him kill his father.

“What do you want?” he said, staring into the reflective lenses of her mask. His own face was mirrored back at him, distorted by the curve and by his own ragged beard. “Make it clear, and I will do everything I can to give you that.”

“Training and education,” she said, ticking them off on her hand. She started pinky-first, whereas he would have started at the thumb. “Not the kind you give your troopers. _Real_ training. The kind you received.”

“You’re too old for the Academy.”

“I don’t know what that is and I don’t care. Find a way.”

Hux pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. What else?”

“Rank befitting my experience. I’m not going to start at the bottom.”

“Experience?” Hux laughed. “What experience? This is your first time off planet.”

“Fighting!” she snarled, leaning forward in threat and Hux swiftly shut up. She still carried her blaster and while he still had his knife, he was no fool. There was no way he could take her on.

“I could break you in half if I wanted to,” she continued in a low growl. “I almost did, on your father’s orders. Just because you think you’re in charge now doesn’t mean I’m going to hesitate to do so again. As I told Keldo, I will finish what I’ve begun.”

Hux listened closely as she spoke. There was no change in her voice as she spoke of the brother she’d shot in cold blood. She’d left his dessicated corpse behind on that radioactive wasteland. The only reason Hux hadn’t done the same to Brendol was because it’d be too suspicious if he did.

What was it that Keldo had called them? Savages. Perhaps he’d been right: the Order too was full of hungry, desperate people clawing for what little power they could get. Hux had been one of them for far too long, and he’d only just managed to obtain another inch of ground. But what he’d gained with Brendol’s death was still uncertain. There was the High Command to appease, to assure them of his continued unfailing loyalty, and then to ensure that the management of his father’s stormtrooper training program was handed off to him. He was the best candidate for it, but half of High Command was made of Brendol’s old cohort. They weren’t going to make it easy for him.

But now that he had struck Brendol off his list, he could get started in earnest.

“You will be my captain,” he said. “My personal bodyguard. My father already has someone in that position but he is weak. Getting soft in his old age.” Even though Cardinal was only a few years older than him. “You can have his post.”

“He won’t fight me for it?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “If he does, I expect that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Phasma nodded. 

Excellent. Hux leaned back against his chair, finally letting the weight of his ordeal sink into his bones. Better exhaustion hit him now and pass, and not while he stood before High Command. If he were to take three stims right before they docked, they would give him enough energy to carry him through the next eight hours.

“You’re dismissed,” he said, and though he felt her bristle, she rose and left. Better she get used to it. He knew she hated taking orders from either him or his father, but Phasma was a quick learner. When it came down to it, she knew with whom the power lay.

His neck prickled, and he rubbed absently at it, wincing when he aggravated his sunburn. It would take him a while to get used to it, to be free from his father’s yoke. Part of him was still braced to leap to his feet should Brendol suddenly enter the room.

But Brendol was dead. He’d been sucked dry by those lovely golden beetles and when Hux had climbed down, he’d made sure to put his boot through his throat for good measure. An autopsy would reveal that he’d been killed by a native, then ravaged by the hostile local fauna--if they were skeptical, they were free to go back down to Parnassos and cheek out the insects themselves. The girl had seen nothing, and the woman wouldn’t talk, not unless she wanted her unborn child to die. 

And he had Phasma in his corner now. Hux could foresee her becoming a valuable asset, far more useful than Cardinal had ever been to his father. Perhaps he could already start testing her loyalty by setting her on his father’s friends. He’d seen her pocket a beetle, and so had he, luring the bitey little things with drops of his father’s blood and forcing them into an empty canteen. If dropping them onto his rivals was too obvious, surely there was something useful to be created from their clever poison. And Admiral Nohbo was scheduled for a visit in two months.

He too, always finished what he began.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I kinda made Brendol Mufasa in Hux's "long live the king" moment.


End file.
